Who are to benefit from Google and MeitY’s collaboration?

Google has partnered with the Ministry of ElectronicsandInformation Technology (MeitY) in India and announced new initiatives to empower the citizens and give them access to safe and enhanced digital services. The announcement saw Aruna Sundarajan, MeitY Secretary, and Rajan Anandan, VP SouthEast Asia and India, Google.

Some core areas that were highlighted during the announcement were to include enabling a safe and secure digital payments experience, imparting digital skills for artisans and Android skills training for students and developers.

Aruna Sundarajan, Secretary, MeitY said, “The Ministry of Electronics and IT intends to give impetus to the Hon’ble Prime Minister’s recent call for a ‘New India’. Collaboration with Google will be hugely beneficial in harnessing the capabilities of technology for the “India growth” story.”

For digital payments, Google India and MeitY will work together to launch a ‘Digital Payments Security Alliance’. This, in collaboration with the Data Security Council of India (DSCI), will aim at bringing together banks, Fintech companies and the government. It will also have a campaign to create community awareness on safe and secure practices, as users adopt digital/mobile payments, capacity building through appropriate Train the Trainer Programs for CSCs, Financial Inclusion Agencies, will be some of the key priorities.

According to Google, the handicrafts industry includes over 7 million artisans in the country. The Digital Unlocked program which was announced by Google to impart training to SMBs will extend this training in partnership with MeitY to over 100,000 artisans per year across India. This will allow artisans to get access to newer markets through the internet. The training will be delivered by National Institute of Electronics & Information Technology (NIELIT). Google India will also provide mobile training labs to reach artisans.

Google had announced its Android Skilling program to train two million developers in India. This included developing a specially-designed instructor-led training program course curriculum. It announced its plans to extend this course curriculum to the National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIELIT) who will in turn train over 100K developers and students through its network of centres.

Other initiatives that Google India and MeitY will undertake in India include: proliferating the Indic web; enhancing government’s online presence especially on mobile platforms to enable citizen engagement and training and capacity building programs on digital tools.